


say something, i'm giving up on you

by confidantes



Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gangs, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 00:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11093445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confidantes/pseuds/confidantes
Summary: Gintoki and Takasugi are in rival high school gangs. An unlikely friendship blossoms.





	say something, i'm giving up on you

By now, they’ve run into each other several times, and still don’t know each other’s names. The only thing Gin knows is that the boy wears a Harusame seal pinned to the lapel of his school jacket, so they probably shouldn’t be talking to each other, much less  _seen_ with each other. (But they’re on the roof of the school, and well, the only spies up here are the roving seagulls wheeling overhead.)

He surprises Gin by not trying to start a fight.

“Got a light?” he asks casually, cigarette hanging lazily from between his lips, hands deep in pockets, shoulders thrown back confidently, despite standing several inches shorter than Gin’s curly silver perm.

Gin laughs. “Didn’t anyone tell you, middle schoolers shouldn’t smoke? At least wait until you’re older, oi.”

The other boy makes a face. “I’m seventeen.”

Gin raises an eyebrow. “Ah, so you’re a shrimp, then.”

He spits the cigarette out, missing Gin’s face by centimeters, and growls, “Do you have a fucking light, or not?”

“Nah. Smoking’s not my scene. Tastes pretty bad, you know, and I’m more a sweet tooth.” He bends, picks up the cigarette, and hands it to the boy between two fingers. “Plus I’d rather try dying between a pretty girl’s legs than from chronic hacking.”

The boy snorts. “You’re lewd as hell.” He takes the cigarette back anyway and tucks it in his pocket. “And you’re a pretty terrible guy.”

He smiles. “Actually, I’m Gin.”

“Takasugi Shinsuke.”

They spend the rest of free period watching the clouds drift above the skyline, wondering why it seemed like they had known each other for years.

 

-

 

Ever since he was a kid, Gin had been a loner.

He’d like to think it wasn’t his fault, an orphan shuttled from home to home, never able to touch ground and plant his roots. But the kids at school had never liked him either – he was sullen, surly, too blunt, too rough with his words and mannerisms. Even after they made him stand in the hall and apologize and write lines on the board  _and_ take up classroom cleaning duties, he still made them cry. Eventually, everyone learned to keep a wide swath from him.

Sakata Gintoki,  _the_ problem child, the neighborhood knew him as. And who would want a problem child?

No one, (so he turns his arms into tree trunks every chance he gets to build a family of his own.)

 

-

 

It’s a hot Sunday afternoon, and Gin is kicking it at the mall with Shinpachi and Kagura, mostly because they’re middle-schoolers and don’t have commitments or jobs yet, unlike Zura and Sakamoto, and Gin is never above acting like a child with real children.

Though he has to admit, most of the time, it feels like free babysitting.

“Oi, oi, settle down, I have to be seen in public with you two, you know,” he says when a scuffle erupts in his peripheral vision, and shouts of “sukonbu!” and “Otsuu!” pepper their heated words.

Whatever they’re arguing about, he isn’t paying attention, because he’s watching the Harusame causing small-time trouble, like ripples in a pond. They occupy the centermost tables of the food court, leering at any girls who walk by, frightening children, cussing at the moms, and generally being a nuisance. Okita, Gin notes with surprise, doesn’t count among their ranks, but Kamui’s shit-eating grin is the brightest centerpiece of all. He still can’t believe Kagura has to go home to  _that_ every night, though he isn’t exactly worried, since she’s more than capable of fending for herself.

The one other person of note, he realizes, isn’t present in the pack of hyenas either.

His eyes track sideways to the lone figure several meters away, leaning against an empty stretch of wall, smoking a cigarette. From the looks of it, Takasugi probably finds his gang’s behavior rather distasteful as well. It isn’t hard to imagine why he’s in the gang to begin with – raging, brawling Gintoki at fifteen years old, swinging bloodied knuckles and a snarling bite, has a good idea why – but it rather begged the question,  _why, in a gang of people, are you alone_?

He stands up from where he was seated on the metal bench, announcing a vague, “I’ll be back,” which goes unnoticed by Shinpachi, who is howling at Kagura’s fingers pinched around his ear, and is heralded by Kagura’s “don’t get eaten by the mall rats, Gin-chan!” He waves back, a two-fingered salute, assuring her that he won’t, and jogs across bustling foot traffic to Takasugi.

“Yo,” he greets simply with a wave.

“What are you doing,” Takasugi says with a pointed stare.

“What, can’t a guy say hi to another guy? Are we at such a point in society that even hello’s have to be followed up with ‘no homo’?”

Takasugi rolls his eyes. “You shouldn’t be talking to me.”

“Maybe.” He swivels on his heel, leans back against the wall. “But maybe you shouldn’t smoke.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t bother strangers.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so short. Who’s there? I can’t see anything below a certain height!”

“Maybe you should fuck off and die.”

Gin shouldn’t laugh, but he does anyway.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know.”

“And you’re a real piece of shit.”

“Yeah,” Gin says, grinning, “but I’m a smooth shit.”

Takasugi chokes. “You’re disgusting.”

Gin shrugs, as it were mere technicalities. “Say, Takasugi,” he starts, but before he can continue, he hears a cheery, “ _Ahhhh,_ what’s this?”

Turns to see a smiling Kamui strolling up to him, calm as a biding storm, flanked by Abuto on his left. Gin grits his teeth. “ _Kamui,_ I presume.”

Kamui’s thin eyes pop open. “You know who I am! Ah, I suppose I shouldn’t front, though. I know who you are too.” He bows with a mechanical flourish. “You’re Sakata Gintoki, the one always babysitting my useless little sister.”

He growls. “I ain’t babysitting her. And let’s be honest with ourselves, Kagura could probably kick your lousy ass any day of the week.”

Kamui grins as though he hadn’t just been insulted. “Ah, is that what she told you! Well, though a match between my sister and me might prove interesting, what might prove  _more_ interesting is the man whom we’re supposed to avoid at all costs.” He turns to Takasugi with a smile. “Do you remember, Shinsuke-senpai? I didn’t either, until Abuto-senpai told me about him. A legend from our middle school days. A fifteen year old with silver hair and blazing red eyes, so fearsome he was known as a one-man gang, a  _Shiroyasha._ Someone shrouded in mystery, whom we all aspired to be, until the day he disappeared. And now I’ve found him in the mall, tagging with useless brats, all his bloodlust gone. Did I get that right, Sakata-san? Did I miss anything?”

Takasugi looks like he’d gotten all the wind knocked out of him. Gin grumbles, “Not at all,  _Kamui-_ _kun,_ ” before shouldering through them and trudging back to his table. When he gets back, Shinpachi and Kagura are surprisingly civil, and they glance up at him, twins in innocence.

“Hm? Something wrong, Gin-san?”

“Nothin’.” He scratches the back of his head. “Hey, whaddaya you say I treat you guys to some ice cream?”

Their cries of delight bring a smile to his face, but when he follows them through the mall, all he can think of is  _Shiroyasha_ nipping at his heels.

 

-

 

“Ne, Bakamoto.”

“Mmm? What is it, Gintoki?”

Gin’s got his feet kicked up on the coffee table, and from his bedroom, Zura is shouting, “ _feet down, Gintoki!_ ”

He would shout back, “ _what are you, my mom? with that stupid wig? you wish!_ ” but there are more pressing matters on his mind right now. Chewing on his bottom lip, he asks, “Do you know anyone in our grade named Takasugi Shinsuke?”

“Ahhhh? Why are you asking, Gintoki? Ahhh!!! Is it a matter of love, Gintoki? Should I have known something, ahaha?”

In less than a second flat, Gin has his fingers curled around Sakamoto’s hair and is yanking him across the coffee table. “Just answer the damn question, ahaha-idiot.”

“Ahaha, don’t be so handsy, Gintoki! I was just kidding, but of course, we’ve all had our suspicions about your sexuality, ahaha!”

“ _Why 'of course'_ – ah, never mind, I knew asking an idiot like you was a terrible idea.”

“But I do know him, Gintoki!” Sakamoto pouts, rubbing his scalp where Gin’s fist used to be. “Takasugi-kun is one of the best students in our class, actually, despite having a terrible attendance record. I’m surprised you don’t know him already. Ah – well, I guess it’s because before you transferred here, something happened with his family. I don’t know the specifics, but I’ve heard it’s what caused him to go off the deep end. Of course, that may all be rumor! You know how kids these days are, ahaha.”

Gin rubs the heel of his hand into his face. “I don’t understand how an airhead like you became president of the student body.”

Sakamoto strikes a grinning pose. “Because I'm  _charming,_ of course. Ah, and vice-president Mutsu takes care of all the real work, of course, ahaha, ahaha!”

Gin smacks him on the back of the head and goes back to reading Jump.

 

-

 

Several days pass.

Takasugi passes him, too, but never once acknowledges him.

When Gintoki visits the roof during free periods, it is always empty.

 

-

 

It rains the day Gintoki forgets his umbrella. Of course.

He would ask Zura, of course, except Zura had already left school for work, and wouldn’t be off until late at night. He would wait for Sakamoto, of course, except Sakamoto had student council duties until eight PM. He would text Shinpachi or Kagura, of course, but getting saved by middle school kids is a tad pathetic.

Which is why, four PM on a Friday afternoon, Sakata Gintoki is huddling like a wet dog by the school gates, waiting for some random passerby with enough kindness in his or her heart to offer him shelter underneath their umbrella.

He’s about to give up and  _run_ home, risking Zura’s imminent lecture on tracking rainwater and mud into the house later, when the pitter-patter above his head sloshes against a new awning.

“Whoever you are,” Gin says, lifting his head, “bless your sons, your cows, and – ” The word stop dead in his throat when he makes eye contact with his savior. “Taka – ”

“Pathetic,” is all the boy has to say.

Gin immediately scowls. “Oi, the weather forecast said sunny skies today, alright, bastard? 30% chance of rain, check the damn report yourself!”

“The weather report was wrong.”

“You take that back!” Gin exclaims hotly, pointing a finger. “Ketsuno Ana is never wrong!”

Takasugi stares, and after several moments,  _laughs._

“Pathetic,” he says again, but this time, softer.

“Says the straight-A student who plays gangster all day, oi.”

“Says the gangster who gave up his fangs to play with kids all day.”

“Says the asshole who gave me the cold shoulder all week.”

The expression on Takasugi’s face drops. “You're  _Shiroyasha._ I shouldn’t even be talking to you right now.”

“And here you are.” He leans in, uses his extra few inches to tower over Takasugi, hair and chin dripping rainwater. “You wanna know why?”

Takasugi swallows. “Enlighten me,” (and is it Gin’s imagination, or does he sound slightly breathless?)

“Because I ain’t Shiroyasha anymore.” He takes the umbrella from Takasugi’s hand, and hoists it higher until he doesn’t have to slouch anymore. “I’m just Sakata Gintoki, five foot nine and a half.”

 

-

 

They walk home together from school that day, and many days after that.

**Author's Note:**

> posting a bunch of old fic from 2014 i dug up, don't mind me
> 
> this is part 1. i never finished part 2, but it's 80% done, so maybe i will get around to finishing it eventually


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